Eurolines is tracking its sales strategy efficiency with Charisma Analyzer
We discovered that we have many inefficient areas, thing that we were not aware of. One can now see all the negative aspects. We managed to eliminate inefficiencies and to achieve competitive advantages.
The company
Founded in 1995, member of the largest European road transportation organization with 450 employees, Eurolines is one of the most important international transportation companies. Eurolines holding consists in 5 companies with complementary operations, covering the transportation services market with a distribution network of 42 agencies throughout the country, and 5 agencies in Germany. The company provides bus tickets, plane tickets, taxi services, tour-operator services, delivery services, as well as rent-a-car services with its more than 200 vehicles, which form the own vehicle park.
The holding has the most complex and extended transportation services distribution infrastructure. Recently, within the group a general sales agent was founded, Tal Aviation, with exclusivity in Romania for 3 external flight companies (Aer Lingus, Gulf Air, and Star Peru).
The situation
The lack of an integrated information system and therefore of key information was affecting the reaction speed more and more, within an industry were if you're aiming for the first place, the decision speed mainly influences the quality and flexibility of the services you provide. Moreover, the lack of best practices throughout the value chain, or the lack of accurate forecasting of sales by distribution channels, partners or product histories, was making the correlation between group revenues and expenses impossible.
In 2007, the holding becomes aware of the importance of a centralized information system, which would provide the management with detailed analysis on all trading operations ran by the company.
The solution
After a rough selection of offers, Eurolines decides for a Charisma ERP-based solution for the integration and centralization of all critical holding operations, and for Charisma Analyzer to extract the performance indicators that will be the basis of strategic decisions.
The two companies have joined their efforts for the analysis of internal holding processes, workflows, distribution channels, solutions and partners – an important activity considering the 400 active partners, on which Eurolines businesses rely on. In order to meet this operational diversity, Charisma specialists have suggested a solution that can be configured with visual tools, so that each system user can easily perform the reports he/she wants in a matter of minutes, without special training.
"The reason we choose Charisma Analyzer has been influenced by multiple information coming from various departments, which were not connected and therefore could not be reflected as centralized analysis, linked by a hierarchical architecture, based on which we could make decisions", Cosmin Marinof, Sales Manager, Eurolines.
The results
Introducing the new system enabled the product managers to extract themselves the information they needed by a drag&drop operation (moving the information or application fields with visual tools to the places they want). Thus, the decision makers had quick access to detail sales analysis by partners, geographical area or product.
Eurolines started to identify the opportunities, which have otherwise been unnoticed, mostly in the online sales channel area. Eurolines seized upon an unexploited opportunity, noticing the different increasing trend compared with the direct or indirect sales, which were predictable due to their seasonality. To make the correct decisions, factors such as customer environment, geographical area, local partners role, which were influencing this increase had to be identified. Analysis criteria that were quickly determined with Charisma Analyzer have been the basis of detail reports, which have highlighted the factors that generated the increase, the information being automatically retrieved from Charisma ERP system. Based on this data, the company immediately decided upon the operational actions to increase the online revenues.
"If we didn't had these facilities in the beginning, we have built them step by step and we now make real-time decisions. I can't talk about a number of reports other than in past tense, because back then we were performing 4 classic, default reports a month, and now we do this everyday, instantly, depending on our needs, and no one has to keep track of them anymore". Cosmin Marinof, Sales Manager, Eurolines.
Case study revised in 2009.